5 Reasons You Need an Auto Insurance Lawyer

If you’re like most people, you purchased car insurance expecting that it would cover you in the event you were involved in an accident. While this is the ideal scenario, it is not the experience that everyone has with their auto insurance company.

And when this happens, an auto insurance lawyer can prove invaluable.

Here are five reasons why you need an auto insurance lawyer.

1. They Are Your Advocates

Simply put, the insurance company representative is not your friend.

While many of the representatives are pleasant, polite, and good-natured, it’s important to remember that they don’t represent you. Their job is to look after the interests of their employer—the insurance company—and minimize the payment to you.

These insurance company representatives have often handled thousands of cases during their career, whereas this is likely your first experience with a car accident case. So, you are at a disadvantage from a knowledge standpoint.

Furthermore, the insurance representatives are not there to help you understand the claims process. They will likely tell you that they cannot offer you advice or information on how to handle a certain issue.

Without an experienced auto insurance lawyer involved, you have no way of knowing the best course of action for your unique case or even what coverage options are available to you. We have picked up cases from individuals (and even other attorneys) who believed that the coverage was limited. When we investigated the insurance issues, we then found extra coverage.

At Beers & Gordon, our attorneys and staff help take the stress out of handling your insurance claim. Once you retain our office, we deal with all of the insurance companies involved in your case. You no longer have to worry about being contacted by the insurance companies. Instead, you can focus on the most important thing—working on your recovery and healing from the crash.

2. They Help Ensure Medical Treatment

After a major car accident, you may run out of PIP medical benefits months before you are done with the necessary treatment. Florida’s no fault laws mean drivers are only legally required to carry $10,000 in PIP benefits. As a result, many people carry only the bare minimum amount of coverage—an amount that a one-night hospital stay can easily exceed.

Without a guarantee of payment, many medical providers will be understandably skittish about continuing to provide you with long-term treatment.

When you have an attorney involved, many providers will continue to treat you pursuant to an agreement between you, the provider, and the attorney, wherein you agree to pay for treatment when a settlement or verdict is reached. This agreement is called a Letter of Protection (LOP).

Medical providers want to know that an attorney is involved in the case because the provider then understands that the attorney is obligated to pay any known liens. Importantly, your providers also want to know that your attorneys are ones with integrity who will uphold their ethical considerations by ensuring the bills get paid.

3. They Give You a Fair Chance

When the time comes to make a demand, it is important that you have an attorney involved. Otherwise, you are guessing on the amount of the demand and what would be considered fair value in the industry.

Remember, it is the claims representative’s job to save the insurance company money. They will usually tell individuals that the amount being offered is both fair and a number that is always accepted by other individuals.

Without years of knowledge like the experienced attorneys at Beers & Gordon, you can never be certain if you are getting fair value for your case.

Additionally, when you do not have an attorney involved in the case, the insurance company knows that the odds are very low that you will file a lawsuit. Most individuals will not sue on their own because they do not know how a lawsuit works. Insurance companies know this and will often offer less money in cases where the insurer believes that a suit is unlikely.

4. They Are Prepared to Fight For You

When the threat of litigation doesn’t result in a fair offer, it’s important that you have an auto insurance lawyer with the experience and ability to take your case to trial.

Surprisingly, many attorneys who handle injury cases have never tried a crash case or have very limited experience in trying cases. During a trial, many different statements, arguments, counter-arguments, and evidence will be presented very quickly. Your attorney needs to understand the finer points of the law as well as when and how to object without asking for more time to research the issue.

Additionally, your attorneys should be comfortable presenting and arguing a case in front of a jury. It is surprising how many attorneys prefer to avoid a trial simply because they are uncomfortable in front of a jury.

David Beers and Jim Gordon have tried over a hundred civil cases between them. During their combined 40 years of experience handling defense cases for companies and insurers, they learned that the attorneys who had the ability to try an effective case would get much higher settlements and better results for the clients.

This is another reason why you need not just any auto insurance attorney but one with the experience to handle the case.

5. Attorneys Pay For Themselves

Another reason most individuals never get around to filing a lawsuit on their own: the expense.

It costs around $500 just to file suit and have the lawsuit served. When experts are retained during litigation, these can cost thousands of dollars. Most depositions cost between $350-600. Thus, you may need tens of thousands of dollars to bring your case to trial (and with no guarantee that you will win).

At Beers & Gordon, we pay for all the expenses so that your case can be prosecuted based on a favorable outcome, not your budgetary limits.

Further, you may have thousands of dollars in outstanding balances with your medical providers or insurance companies when your case resolves. With the help of a good auto insurance attorney, these balances can often be reduced.

Without the help of an auto insurance lawyer, you might never know that reducing your balances is even possible. You could be unnecessarily paying thousands of dollars to providers.

Every bill needs to be scrutinized to ensure that the provider is really due the entire balance. It is common that we find numerous billing errors in favor of the provider. If these bills were not thoroughly reviewed and analyzed, additional payments could be made that would reduce your overall recovery.

The attorneys and staff at Beers & Gordon work diligently to reduce these balances as low as possible. Every dollar saved on these balances is a dollar to the client.

When we hire new staff, we frequently hear how Beers & Gordon puts in far more work on resolving liens and getting reductions than their previous employers. We don’t make any more money from this, but it is the right thing to do for the most important person in the case: the client.

Conclusion

Recovering from a car accident is difficult enough without having to fight your own legal battles. Having an experienced, trustworthy auto insurance lawyer in your corner helps to level the uneven playing field with the insurance company so that you get the benefits and compensation you deserve.

If you have been injured in an auto accident, you are likely looking for answers and direction. By retaining a car accident attorney for your case, you will be making the first step toward a favorable outcome.

At Beers & Gordon, P.A., you will always meet with an attorney—not a paralegal or case worker—to advise you on the best way to proceed with your case. Consultations are always free and there are no fees unless we win.

Schedule your initial consultation today to see how we can help.